It wasn’t quite the 4th of July last week, but there were still fireworks going on at the DeKalb County Courthouse after a war of words on social media manifested itself during the DeKalb County Commission’s Meeting of the Whole. The dust up occurred between the Director of the E-911 Center and a local commissioner after a minor accident happened in front of the commissioner’s home.
The accident occurred on June 9 on Highway 70, in front of the home of First District Commissioner Julie Young. Afterwards, Young posted on Facebook, “I had to ask that Alexandria be paged out ... our 1st responders! 3x's!” She would then post, “State trooper only one on scene accident happened 20 minutes ago!”
Later that evening, at a County Commission Budget Committee meeting, Commissioner Young addressed the committee saying, “I sat on my front yard today (June 9) and there was an accident at my house. I called 911 and had to ask the 911 person three times because it had been 20 minutes for them to page Alexandria first responders. The state trooper got there before anybody in this county. Alexandria, Liberty, Smithville, nobody. The state trooper was on the scene before anybody in this county came to help those people. A woman and a child and six other individuals,” said Commissioner Young.
The posting and remarks at the meeting did not sit well with 911 Director Brad Mullinax, who responded to the post by saying, “Well Julie Young! I’m gonna go ahead and call you out. You are either a total liar or you have no idea what you are talking about. I have reviewed this call and spoke to the supervisor on duty. I will be sharing the facts and recordings of this call at the next county commission meeting. You can’t argue with a recorder that is time stamped. See you at the next meeting with my information.”
The two would spar on Facebook before the issue came to a head last Thursday during a county commission committee of the whole meeting. There, Director Mullinax addressed the commission with recordings.
In anticipation of Mullinax addressing the commission, Commissioner Young had sent out emails to County Mayor Stribling, and members of the commission, seeking a copy of the June 9 budget committee meeting, as well as a referral to the county commission’s ethics committee over what she considered rumors and slanderous comments made toward her in response to her Facebook posts.
During the meeting County Mayor Stribling read Commissioner Young’s email and responded to her call for an ethics committee probe. “Tim and fellow commissioners I have been accused of throwing our emergency service workers under the bus at our budget meeting (June 9) by Brad Mullinax. Tim, I am requesting a complete copy be made available to me and all the commissioners prior to our workshop (Thursday, June 23). Also, a copy can be sent to Brad Mullinax and to the 911 department. If we need to it can be released on WJLE for the county to hear. We might need the ethics committee to look at who started the slander of me by starting the rumors that Brad Mullinax posted on my Facebook page”, Stribling read.
“I don’t have a copy of the meeting,” said Stribling. “We don’t tape budget committee meetings. Christy (Nokes) takes minutes and records the motions and seconds and what we do that require a vote, but I don’t tape any committee meetings. All of you have an ethics policy, but ethics deals with two things: conflict of interest and accepting gifts, bribes, or money,”
Director Mullinax was then allowed to address the County Commission. “I was told that Mrs. Julie Young was airing out things and that one of our county commissioners had commented on something she had posted. Julie Young posted I have asked three times that Alexandria first responders be paged out to the wreck. The county commissioner who responded to the post wrote ‘Not good’.
“This was an hour after the incident,” Mullinax continued. “Julie Young never called me. She never contacted either of the 911 board members that are here tonight. She chose to air out laundry on social media without first verifying the facts.”
Mullinax then laid out the 911 recordings and timeline to the June 9 accident.
“This incident occurred on June 9, 2022 at 16:23 (4:23 p.m.). That is when we (911) received the call,” said Mullinax. “All (calls) are GPS timed. When calls are received recordings are started and once calls are dispatched every piece of equipment is documented. It is a requirement by the State of Tennessee. It’s also required that we have a voice logging recorder that logs every 911 call.
“For the first 30-40 seconds of this call we had no one on the line This was kind of like an Onstar call. He (wreck victim) didn’t realize his car or phone had called 911. Caleb (911 dispatcher) was trying to talk to him but nobody was responding. He finally came on the line, but this guy (wreck victim) was not from here and had no idea where he was or what road he was on. He was actually probably in a little bit of emotional shock,” Mullinax continued.
He (wreck victim) said he didn’t think anybody was hurt and that everybody was out walking around … but at 16:27 (4:27 p.m.) he (wreck victim on the line) said there was a lady there with a scratch on her arm. Once we made that determination at 16:28 (4:28 p.m.) we paged all of our responders. We paged DeKalb County First Responders, Alexandria First Responders, DeKalb EMS, DeKalb Fire, and Alexandria Fire with the voice pagers. Then after we got our primary agencies dispatched, we called the THP because at this point, we know there are injuries.
At 16:33 (4:33 p.m.) EMS went enroute. Four seconds after EMS went enroute we got a call from Ms. Julie Young on 911 stating that THP was there and (during the call) she asked three times if responders had been dispatched and she was answered three times by Caleb (911 dispatcher) that responders had been dispatched and were enroute. That went on three times. She then concluded the call saying, “this is Julie Young, first district county commissioner and I will be timing your response”. Mullinax added that this comment from Commissioner Young was a little bit intimidating to the staff because “usually our county commissioners don’t greet us like that when they call”.
Mullinax played for the county commission the actual recording of the call Commissioner Young made on the emergency 911 line reporting the crash June 9.
Mullinax also played for the county commission a WJLE recording of Commissioner Young’s comments during the June 9 budget committee meeting in which she referenced the June 9 incident in making her case for the county funding another ambulance based on need.
At that meeting, County Mayor Tim Stribling responded to Young saying that the county already had three ambulances, and they were all available that day (June 9).
After playing the recordings for the county commission Thursday night (June 23), Mullinax concluded his presentation by saying “Clearly there is a pretty big difference in the story that was on Facebook and social media and what was actually said at the budget committee meeting compared to what the actual call was. This is not about politics with me or any kind of personal vendetta. It’s about professionalism and having the common courtesy to give me a call. I welcome anybody to call me anytime and if there is a problem I will get to the bottom of it,” said Mullinax.
While admitting she could have chosen better wording in her Facebook posts, Commissioner Young denied allegations that she doesn’t support EMS as she claims Mullinax tried to imply in Facebook posts responding to hers
“I think common courtesy goes both ways. I would have never known anything if you (Mullinax) hadn’t popped up on my Facebook post nor anything about anybody leaving the meeting after the budget meeting (June 9) and telling you I threw EMS under the bus according to your Facebook post. I can read all the back-and-forth posts out loud. I’ve got them calling me a liar. I have been to your 911 center multiple times since I have been a commissioner. I have thanked and appreciated you (Mullinax). I supported you (Mullinax) at the hospital (former chief administrative officer) and tried to work with you to see if you could get the hospital to pay $69,000 a year for a shift on an ambulance crew. I kind of feel a knife stuck in my back by you because you of all people saying I don’t support but playing like I support EMS after as many years as I have been a commissioner over this one kind of a misunderstanding due to my poor word choice (in Facebook post). I will be the first one to admit that was my poor word choice, but you can’t crucify me on a Facebook post and then come in here and say oh, I don’t do that,” said Commissioner Young.
Mullinax shot back “Yes, I can. You called out our agency (E911) specifically and you told a blatant lie and you sat right here at this meeting (June 9) and said the same thing. If you polled these people right here (county commissioners) about what you said in that budget committee meeting (June 9) and what was said on your Facebook page I’d bet you nine out of ten would say you was attacking 911”.
Commissioner Young then asked, “Who in here thought I was attacking 911?”
“It did kind of sound negative toward 911 because when you posted that out on Facebook it’s going to give the public a negative image that it took them (911) 20 minutes to page anybody,” answered Commissioner Matt Adcock.
Despite the tape recording of the June 9th budget meeting, Commissioner Young denied making the allegation that it took 20 minutes for 911 to page first responders to the June 9 accident, but added that she had a photograph showing only a state trooper on the scene when she made the call.
At the May 23 County Commission meeting, Young was among four other commissioners who voted “No” for allocating $350,000 of ARP funds towards a new fire hall in the Liberty/Dowelltown area. The measure passed and is expected to include a bay area for an EMS day truck, which would cut response times to the Alexandria area in half. Response times to that part of the county are currently 20-25 minutes.
